enabled to offer up worship, holy and acceptable to God, through the operation of the same divine power and principle, which is a manifestation of God in your flesh. And all our performances being under the influence of the divine spirit, it would cause unrighteousness to vanish from the earth, wars would cease, every evil would be overcome of good-the angels of God casting out all our enemies. Thus, "the wilderness would become an Eden, and our desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness would be heard therein, thanksgiving and the voice of melody."

All the systematized works of man, never can advance this work one step. If we ever have pure religion, and undefiled before God, it must be by attending to the operation of his power in our own spirits, thus enabling us to overcome every thing of a corruptible nature, and to know a passing from death unto life, because we have loved the brethren.

Now with respect to watery baptism, it has passed away, together with all the relics of the former dispensation, forever. They are not at all adapted unto this, which is wholly spiritual. The baptism of the Holy Ghost has most assuredly superseded the necessity of baptism with water. For if the inside of the cup and platter,

or of the principles, affections, and dispositions, from which our actions proceed, become cleansed, the outside will necessarily become clean. For throughout the creation, like produces like. And if our dispositions are of a heavenly character, they will produce actions of the same character. And I apprehend, if we place our dependence in outward ordinances, we deny the coming of Christ in the flesh, and bring ourselves under the baptism of John; and we are returning to types and figures, rites and ceremonies.

Neither need we go to bread and wine, as typical of that nourishment which we receive through the body and blood of Christ; because the substance itself is come, and its power is experimentally known, even that power which is the resurrection and the life. And when we know the life of Christ, this operative principle, which is a governing principle-and when the life of Christ is predominant in our souls, when this circulating medium is spread over the whole system, it gives life, power, and vitality to the whole soul; and here we are nourished and raised up to magnify the name of God. And from this operation, faith itself proceeds. "By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God." Faith, and mere belief, are essentially different and distinct. We

may believe many things which are not essential to constitute us christians; for the devils believe and tremble, but they remain devils still. There is no regenerating influence in this belief; but when we come daily to attend to the principle which reproves for evil-and not what man may have constituted a reproof for evil-when we attend to these admonitions, we shall in due time become partakers of a cup of consolation, which the divine power gives us; and we shall increase our experience, and as we increase, our faith becomes more sound. And there can be no faith without works-there can be no living faith without works. I want us all, therefore, to come to an examination, whether our faith is a mere belief imbibed by education, forged and fostered by prejudice, which have led to the adoption of these systems; or whether it has been produced by the immediate operation of God upon our spirits.

And it is our obedience or disobedience which constitutes the true ground of election and reprobation. It is absurd, and, I had almost said, blasphemous, to suppose that God has fore-ordained any of the workmanship of his hands to eternal misery, when he declared in the beginning, and which remains to be a truth, that all his workmanship was good. But there are many

who are disposed to find no difference between prescience and fore-ordination; but it does not necessarily follow that because God knoweth all things from all eternity, he has fore-ordained them. There is a spirit in each of us, and if we attend to it, it will lead to God; but if we neglect it, we fall into darkness. And what is darkness? It is the absence of light-it is not a positive power; and when light is introduced, it is necessarily lost and disappears. And thus it is with evil: and we don't need to go to a separate and distinct evil spirit, in order to find a tormenter, for every act of wickedness brings with it its own torment. And if we are attentive to that principle which brings peace, it will grow and increase; and we shall more and more fully witness its power, till every thing of an opposite nature is wholly subdued. And when evil is presented to our mind, there will be no temptation left for us to join in, or unite with it; and thus we shall become elected together with Christ, even as he was, through obedience, elected. And we shall become heirs of God, and joint heirs with him; and as we must learn, so he also learnt obedience by the things which he suffered.

But if, on the contrary, we will not come under the influence of the Holy Ghost, that divine principle, that holy spirit, our progress will be

retarded,-we shall be confounded, and our minds will be more and more hardened, till we may be left to obey every evil thought, word, and action. But if, through obedience, when good be present and nigh, we join in with it, it will increase and cast out the evil. This is the consequence of its holy operation, notwithstanding it may be different in all those who experience its power. The proud and lofty it will bring down into meekness, and those who are weak and desponding it will raise into firmness, and thus exemplify the declaration of one of the prophets: "Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain." And then the glory of the Lord can and will cover the earth, as the waters cover the deep.

My mind has desired for you, and for mine own soul also, that we may be willing to try these things for ourselves. I desire to direct you not to man, nor to the teachings of men; for it is only as we come to have our understandings opened, that we know the testimony of Jesus to be the spirit of prophecy. And whether it shows us our own state and condition, or the situation of those around us, or things yet to come, it is the same spirit which inspired the holy men, patri